Chapter 2- Dockside Collapse

  Sound came back first, sharp and metallic and far too close. A steady ringing filled Talon Rowe’s skull, broken only by the deeper roar of something detonating nearby. His lungs fought for air that tasted like salt and carbon. Every muscle ached, and when he tried to move, a jagged bolt of pain tore up his ribs. For an instant he wondered if he was already dead. Then the pain reminded him he was not.

  Light bled in slow shapes across his vision. White at first, then gray, then fractured colors that refused to settle. He blinked until outlines formed, the pier, the wrecked hauler, shadows moving fast through rain and smoke.

  Someone was shouting orders. He could not make out the words.

  His radio screamed with a high electric squeal that cut through everything else. The earpiece spat static and distortion, every channel flooded. Assist was coming. He knew that much. He could not hear a thing.

  Figures crossed his sightline, five, maybe six, armed, coordinated, moving with precision. Weapons flashed lines of white-blue light that cut through the fog. Not gunfire. Lasers or something close to it. Energy weapons. Whoever they were, they were not local law enforcement.

  Then he saw the armor.

  Not vests. Not riot plating. Full suits, sleek and dark, jointed like something out of a defense prototype reel. Helmets sealed. Visors alive with faint blue patterns. They moved in practiced formation, unfazed by the chaos.

  Rowe blinked again, disbelief edging past the pain. Armor. Who in hell comes to a port fight dressed like that.

  The air shook as another blast went off near the loading gantry. Shards of metal rained down the length of the dock. Rowe dragged himself behind a half-collapsed crate, breath rough and shallow.

  One of the hauler’s containers ruptured in the blast, sending fragments spinning. He saw one of the earlier attackers, the restless man, duck behind cover, a dagger in one hand and a pistol in the other. The blade caught the light strangely, its edge pulsing faintly red. The man shouted something over his shoulder and charged toward the new arrivals.

  The armored troops advanced through the smoke, their plates catching the flicker of blue light as they moved. They fired in controlled bursts, driving the dockworkers back. Two of them were dragging prisoners toward an armored vehicle that had skidded sideways across the loading line.

  The restless man struck first, slamming into one of them with a roar. Steel met composite armor. Sparks flashed in the rain. The others turned, covering with precise arcs of fire. Their weapons hummed in rising pitch.

  Rowe pushed himself up against the crate, vision still swimming. His taser and baton were gone. His sidearm hung at his hip. He unclipped it with shaking fingers.

  The man tore the dagger free from a soldier’s shoulder plate and spun toward another who was kneeling over a fallen figure pinned under wreckage. The attacker raised both weapons, ready to finish him.

  Rowe did not think. Trained to aim center mass, he had always been taught to stop the threat where the body presented a clear target, but the attacker’s torso was obscured, only his head and neck exposed as he readied the strike. Rowe lined up the blurred shape, aimed for the one viable window, and pulled the trigger.

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  The report cracked through the storm. The round struck clean, center skull. The man dropped instantly, momentum folding him to the concrete beside the wounded soldier.

  Rowe exhaled once, half relief and half shock. Then movement caught his eye, a slick figure breaking from the shadows, sprinting straight toward him. Rain sheeted off his coat. A sword flashed in one hand, its edge shimmering with a pale, cold light.

  Rowe brought the pistol up and fired twice.

  Both rounds sparked in midair, deflecting off a burst of radiance that flared around the man’s forearm, a shield made of light. The glow faded as fast as it appeared, leaving only the reflection of rain.

  Rowe’s mind barely processed it before the man was on him.

  He pivoted, tried to step back, but the sword drove in. Instinct turned the strike aside at the last instant, enough to keep it from the chest. The blade tore through his vest and into his abdomen. The shock froze him mid-breath. Heat and cold flooded together as the metal withdrew.

  Rowe collapsed to one knee, vision dimming. The attacker raised the blade again, but the armored newcomers closed in fast, shouting over one another. Two tackled the man from behind, wrenching him away and slamming him hard to the concrete. Another drove a boot into his wrist until the sword clattered free.

  They dragged him up and bound his wrists. Adryn, Rowe realized distantly, hauled toward the vehicle at the edge of the dock. His voice was gone. The world blurred to gray.

  Two more armored figures sprinted past and dropped beside another man lying face-down in the rain. One checked for breathing. The other shouted for equipment. Blood streamed from the side of the man’s head. Rowe caught only fragments of their words, compression, pulse, fracture. Whoever he was, they treated him like one of their own. Cael, the name surfaced again, loose and disconnected.

  The pain in Rowe’s abdomen turned dull, then distant. His hands felt heavy, the edges of his vision pulling inward. Everything seemed to slow.

  A new figure ran in, larger than the rest, armor marked with faint light across the shoulders. Without hesitation, the man reached down, lifted Rowe under the arms, and carried him as if he weighed nothing. Rowe’s legs barely touched the ground as they crossed the slick concrete toward the others.

  He was set down beside the injured man. Someone pressed a cold metal device against the side of his head. Searing pain followed.

  Rowe’s body arched as a machine hissed against his abdomen, small, metallic, alive. It pulsed and burned, sealing flesh with harsh precision. He screamed, but strong hands held him down. The device did not slow. It only clicked and shifted, continuing its work.

  Through blurred eyes, he caught flashes of motion, the same armored figures moving around him, their visors glowing faintly as they worked. One of them murmured something. Another adjusted a control on the device. The world narrowed to the sound of his own breath and the hum of the machine.

  Then he was being lifted again, weightless, carried across the dock. Rain struck his face. The same device still clung to him, attached by narrow filaments, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. It hurt with every pulse.

  He was laid inside a vehicle. The interior was cold metal and soft blue light. The machine stayed on him, still sealing, still burning. Across from him lay the man with the head injury. Something circular was fixed to his temple, faint lights pulsing from within. Two of the armored figures hovered over him, tapping commands into their wrist-mounted pads.

  Rowe’s vision flickered.

  Images flashed through his mind, faces he did not know, places he had never seen. Corridors, storms, lights under water. He tried to shake it off, but they came faster, folding over each other until it felt like his head was full of static and voices.

  Outside, red emergency strobes cut through the fog, port responders, emergency crew, trying to reach the scene. He heard the faint blare of sirens and the distant shout of someone calling his unit number.

  They were too late.

  The armored men turned away from the light and loaded him fully inside. The doors sealed. Engines engaged.

  There was more pain, a final bright pulse through his chest.

  Then nothing.